Bannon & Clare is a series of four books by Lilith Saintcrow, set in an alternate Victorian Era where sorcerers, mentaths, dragons, gryphons and the like coexist. The series begins when, after a series of attacks on registered mentaths and disappearances of unregistered ones, Sorceress Prime Emma Bannon recruits recently unregistered mentath Archibald Clare, and the two try to stop a plot against the entire realm.
- The Iron Wyrm Affair
- The Red Plague Affair
- The Ripper Affair
- The Damnation Affair (ebook)
- The Collected Adventures of Bannon & Clare (omnibus)
Tropes:
- And Now for Someone Completely Different: The Damnation Affair takes place in a completely different part of the setting (this world's version of The Wild West instead of Great Britain) and stars a completely different set of characters.
- Artificial Limbs: Referred to as "Alterations". Altered people who just have replacement limbs are fine, but anything beyond that, such as to the torso, is considered... unnatural.
- Artistic License – History: Obviously the series takes some liberties due to being steampunk urban fantasy (unless Buckingham Palace was actually smashed flat by a giant mecha in real life), but the British aristocracy seems to function largely as in real life. Therefore, people should not still be addressing Emma as "Miss Bannon" after Victrix makes her a countess at the end of book 1. Mikal still calling her "Prima" makes sense, as magical titles would naturally take precedent for a Sorceress Prime, but everybody else should be calling her "my lady" or "Lady Selwyth".
- Awesomeness by Analysis: Clare can deduce a great deal about a situation from almost anything he sees or hears, except if it's explicitly magical.
- Bad Powers, Bad People: For a long time, sorcerers with Disciplines too far on the Black side of the spectrum were simply executed when it became obvious, because of this thinking. By Emma's time, this only happens to Diabolic sorcerers (those that survive their own births, that is; too strong an inclination will mutate a developing fetus past the point of viability), but people are still extremely wary of her and seem to expect her to use her powers for ill.
- Broken Pedestal: Victrix becomes this for Emma in the second book, when she learns that Victrix commissioned the creation of the Red Plague.
- Funny Foreigner: Valintinelli leans into the "hot-blooded Neapolitan bravo" stereotype to make people underestimate him. (His natural English accent is pretty much the same as Clare's, an Yton graduate. He drops the exaggerated Italianisms when he wants to make a point.)
- Gaslamp Fantasy: A steampunk setting where magic happens to mostly edge out technology.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Victrix orders the Red Plague made, with a rather horrifying disregard for possible collateral damage. Then that damage includes her own husband— he survives the initial course, but it ruins his health, such that he's too weak to survive another serious illness some years later.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Every book is titled "The X Affair".
- Instant Awesome: Just Add Mecha!: The climax of The Iron Wyrm Affair involves a giant spider mecha controlled by an insane mentath attacking Buckingham Palace.
- Jack the Ripoff: The Ripper Affair, as the title implies, involves an alternate-history version of the Ripper murders.
- My Skull Runneth Over: In an inversion, mentaths can screw over their brains if they don't get enough mental stimulation.
- Name and Name: The series takes its title from the last names of its two main characters, Emma Bannon and Archibald Clare.
- Necromancer: A Black sorcerer or sorceress of the Endor, like Emma, is capable of doing things like summoning up a legion of the dead and a Pale Horse to ride on, but only at night.
- Noodle Incident:
- A month before the beginning of The Iron Wyrm Affair, Emma nearly had her magic stolen by another sorcerer. The exact details are left lacking, except that Mikal strangled him to save her.
- Clare, meanwhile, starts the series off having lost his mentath registration not that long ago for unknown reasons. All he's willing to admit is that he killed someone.
- Our Dragons Are Different: Usually referred to as "wyrms", and have the power to cause areas of timeless irrationality around them.
- Royal "We": When monarchs like Queen Victrix speak like this, they're speaking for both themselves and the ruling spirit that inhabits their body.
- Sherlock Scan: One of Clare's specialties, especially regarding people.
- Steampunk: Elements like the artificial limbs, logic engines and the mentaths all fit into this genre nicely.
- Super-Intelligence: Mentaths like Clare have this as a power, although they don't usually react well to magic and its associated irrationality.
- Weakened by the Light: Death magic and Black Disciplines, such as Emma specializes in, weaken their practitioners in sunlight. Some of the greater magics can only be worked at night.
- The Wild Hunt: The army of the dead Bannon summons up at the climax of The Iron Wyrm Affair as part of her magic to get to where one of the villains is enacting a ritual in time evokes the feeling of one of these.
- Wizard Duel: Emma gets into several of these with other Sorcerer Primes.
